Third party computer systems may often request information that may be considered sensitive in nature to a first party which has collected the information from an individual user. For instance, information that may be used to identify an individual may be considered sensitive information due to the privacy concerns of individuals and privacy policies adopted by businesses. In order to perform certain functions, some systems may request access to personally identifiable information (PII). For example, a shipping system may provide a shipping price quote based upon a customer's address. A shipper may charge different prices depending upon where an item is to be shipped. Therefore, the shipping system may request the customer's shipping address before the shipping system will provide a shipping price quote. Although the shipping system may request a customer's address, a business may be reluctant to provide the shipping system with the customer's address because the customer's address may be considered personally identifiable information (PII) that a business may prefer not to share with the shipping system.
Although the amount of personally identifiable information (PII) shared with a system may be reduced to a minimal amount, the minimal amount of personally identifiable information shared with the system may be enough information to allow a rogue individual or entity to make a positive identification based on the supplied personal identifiable information. For example, in order to provide a shipping quote, a shipping system may request a customer's zip code. Although the customer's zip code may be minimal personally identifiable information, an interested individual or entity may use the customer's zip code, combined with other information, to determine certain identity information for a person.